Help with helmets (entry-level)

[luiceur]

Hi,

After hours of research, I have narrow down my list of potential helmets as the following:

HJC I70 (£135)
HJC FP-ST (£129)

I really think they are very similar helmets, just a bit more aggressive the I70 and a bit safer the FP-ST. I was wondering if you could help me to make my mind with some comments.

Regards

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Moto

[Skudd]

First, set your budget, then get one that fits,check the ratings, then it's just what you feel makes you look good. Helmets from the £50 bracket to the £500 bracket are more or less as safe as each other if you check the ratings. It's just that the more expensive ones can be lighter, have better wind noise protection and a few more features.
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[doggone]

If it's your first and not sure what use you will even get from it, you could go for half that price, mind I've noticed some good end of season deals if not too fussy about colours and brand.
Typically they don't have full range of sizes though.

[stinkwheel]

A well fitting £50 helmet is better than a poorly fitting £500 one. Try them on, see what fits, the rest is down to fashion/personal preference.
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[Ste]

By research, do you mean trying to lots of different lids?

You want to buy the one which fits you the best and that's really all there is to it.

SHARP ratings are all well and good but they don't take account of how well each helmet fits you which is the single most important factor in how much protection it will give your head in the event of a crash.

[Teflon-Mike]

At the end of the day, a crash-hat don't stop you crashing.... the safety ratings are then all pretty immaterial. If you don't bump your head, when you come off, how well the hat fared in tests doesn't matter much. Face plant a scania at a combines impact speed approaching 150 per.... it's likely that the difference between any helmet and no helmet wont be much... in fact I recall a MAG argument for non-mandatory crash-hats many years ago, that was based on the notion that in a severe accident, with no hat, you be dead, and pretty instantly so not suffer; you add a hat to that same off, and the result is 'life' but on a support machine as a vegetable for however many years at NHS expense... which is 'better'?

But, crux is, a crash hat don't stop the crash, all it do is soften the blow a bit, for 'some' crash scenarios, specifically the ones where you bump your head, and the impact is severe enough that the hat does absorb more impact energy than bumping your head on a low door lintel, but not 'so' severe that you gonna be vegitised regardless, or something not covered by the hat, like your kidneys or your lungs gets ruptured and kills you regardless....

The ratings then.... are wonderful.... for the sales men and advertisers... its something they can print on the box, and in the add or tell the customer in the shop...... 'Otherwise' they are pretty meaningless.

And as has been said, a 'crap' hat that actually fits and stands some chance of doing its job, is far more effective than one that makes your head ache or wobbles around like a blancmange on a bouncy-castle!

NOW them famous 'ratings' are even more irrelevent, cos the tests 'presume; a pretty 'standard' head inside the thing.... and there ISN'T a 'Standard head.

So back to the fit....

And personally, I would not try selecting a crash hat like a mobile-phone, by make, model and colour option, from the 'online' brochure. I would go into the real-world shop.... and TRY ON what took my fancy. And see what fitted best, THEN I might ask the salesman, "Have you got this in any other colours?" and maybe get lucky....

For illustration, I bought my first Shoei, back in I think 1988. At the time, we had no internet to pipe gazzilions of adverts at us, and you were lucky to get an inteligible grunt from the salesman, let alone a polite, "Would you like McFries, with that?" Level of customer interest. Meanwhile Shoei were a then pretty much unheard of brand name. The acknowledged 'Best' was probably a 'Bell'. thanks to a very hard add campaign co-incident with the 1973 compulsory lid-law, that vaunted that they had designed their crash hats for the US Air-force supersonic test-pilots, and a catchy slogan "If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 dollar helmet, otherwise buy a Bell" Probably the best known names were AGV for 'Full-Face' hats and 'Stadium' for open. OTMH an AGV X5 ACU gold and BSI type A approved fibreglass hat was about £50. A Stadium pizz-pot about £25, and a Bell 'Star' about £120 or so.My Shoei cost me I think £140, and folk said I was 'Mad' to pay that much for a hat.... B-U-T I went into the shop, tried on most of what they had, not that it was a lot back then, and then did an obscene phone-call impression to see how quick the visor steamed up. The Shoei was the only one that didn't really, so I bought it.. MAD? Well, to want to see where I am going? Obviously!

For the best part of a decade, Shoei and Arai had a virtual monopoly on helmets that had actually effective venting and visors that you could open and close with frost bitten fingers, it took a l-o-n-g time for the competition to catch up. But for probably the last 20 years, that 'standard' for the rest of the market to follow, has been pretty high, and most have got pretty close, and prices have become a lot more competitive, and now most hats have decent venting and visors less wont to mist up, they may even have other 'features' like removable washable linings, pre-formed head-set recesses or built in blu-tooth etc etc etc...

B-U-T, the technology of padding the blow, has not significantly evolved in fifty years. They ALL basically use a soft crusheable polystyrene as the medium for absorbing impact energy, and a plastic shell around that to hold it together. In fact, its not a lot different to the British Army 'Pith-Helmet' of Victorian times, only they have substituted expanded polystyrene foam for cork, and a plastic for the canvas cover. Similarly, the 'Standards' to which they are tested, have not changed much since the BS institute was asked by the UK Govt to come up with 'Something' for motorcycle helmets, and basically modified standards they had developed for the army for squaddies hats... great if you hope they will stop a bullet, probably not so great if you are worried about being hit by a Volvo!!!

Worth mentioning that large part of the modern tests, including the oft vaunted SHARP scheme, are based around penetration tests where they drop a spike into the hat and measure ho far in it goes... these tend to favour hats with harder shells, but, hats with softer shells, often absorb more impact enercy when the impact is spread over a wider area and the shell doesn't get split... which is a bit more the ratings practically mean squat in the real world.

No wanna get hurt? DONT CRASH! that's my motto. USE your head, and look out for trouble, don't stick it in a plastic pot and 'think' you have safety covered... you don't!

It has Worked for me for over 1/4 century, and I have to say that in that time, NO bludy crash hat I have had, has earned its keep by saving my bonce! And I have come off a couple of times; just never hit my head, or hit it hard enough to test the impact absorption qualities of the hat!

SO!!!!

If you heed what I am trying to say, in my long winded way, you will ignore the lore, forget the specs and the sales hype...... and GO TO A SHOP AND TRY STUFF ON, and maybe do an obscene phone-call impression inside one to see if it fogs. THEN you will pick the hat (of what they actually have in stock!) you like best, based on what fits and is most comfy, and which one you can work the visor and vents in gloved hands.... NOT on what it says in the brochures or what the mags say they scored in their tests!

And TRY very hard never to have to put the thing to the test, by NOT CRASHing!!!!!!!! LOOK at where you are going and things like the speed limit signs you probably ignore, NOT what it says in a colourful advert or article!

It is NOT a choice anyone can make for you, its your head it has to fit, not ours, and certainly not one based on make/model numbers. You have to go get hands on. In a real shop, in the real world.
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[luiceur]

I understand, I will get my hands and head on into a shop...
Thanks everyone
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Moto